A few hours before the 92nd Academy Awards, the mourning continues in Hollywood: after the disappearance of Kirk Douglas at the age of 103, it is another legend, from the small screen this time, which has just died out: Robert Conrad. The 84-year-old actor was renowned for two outstanding series from the 1960s and 1970s, "Les Mystères de l'Ouest" and "Les Têtes Brûlées".
He was first a singer
The son of a technical manager and a mother, director of public relations for the musical label Mercury Records, the man with the light blue-green look did not have an easy start. Born in 1935 in Chicago where he spent his childhood, this handsome kid with a small size - 1.67 m - became a boxer in the featherweight category, and alternates odd jobs as a milk delivery man or docker. Then, this regular in cabarets launched in the 1950s in a singing career under the name of Bob Conrad, released several discs where he played the crooners playboys pop, while taking courses in theater.
Like DiCaprio in "Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood"
In the mid-1950s, he became an actor in contract with a large studio, like many at that time. This is what is said in particular "Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood", the last film by Quentin Tarantino, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a comedian of contract western series, which was the case with Robert Conrad. He signed a first with Warner Bros, with whom he landed several small roles in cinema, before being illustrated in the ABC series "Intrigues in Hawaii" between 1959 and 1963.
He really was a sheriff
In 1965, Conrad won, at CBS, the contract that would make him popular: the series "The Mysteries of the West", produced until 1969, for four seasons of 28 or 24 episodes broadcast at the time in France on the second channel of the ORTF then in “La Une est à vous”. He played James West, a sort of super sheriff working for the American secret services at the end of the 19th century.
A man of action dressed entirely in black, teaming up with the tongue-in-cheek Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), he faced strange adversaries, the series mixing western and fantasy. However, many years later, Robert Conrad would really put on the clothes of an American lawyer. In the mid-1980s, he sold his Malibu villa to settle in the Bear Valley, in Northern California, where he continued to practice boxing for his pleasure. And he accepted for a time the post of assistant-sheriff in his valley: "Fighting between tourists, that knows me," he said in 1989 to Télé-Loisirs about his duties. These are the only regrettable incidents, the region experiencing only very low crime! Anyway, here I take the time to live. "
Pappy Boyington really existed
In 1972, Robert Conrad joined NBC in the series "Les Têtes brûlées", for two seasons of 23 and 13 episodes, between 1976 and 1978. The successful series, broadcast in France on Antenne 2 between 1977 and 1979, tells the daily life of a squadron of extraordinary Corsair pilots and daredevils during the Pacific War and the Second World War. Its hero, Greg "Pappy" Boyington, is a point guard, a pilot with a big heart who never separates from his dog, a bull terrier nicknamed "Barback".
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However Gregory Boyington really existed: this strong head was recruited by the American army to form a squadron of bad boy pilots not afraid of anything, which will be illustrated during the conflict. These soldiers are all in their twenties, while their leader, Boyington, is 30, hence the nickname "pappy" given by his pilots. After the conflict, the man recounts his journey in a book, which will serve as the basis for the synopsis of the series.
He was convicted of a fatal accident
The rest of Robert Conrad's career and life is less glorious. After other series and then small roles on television and in the cinema in the late 1970s and in the 1980s, we no longer see him on the screens. Father of eight children, he launched his weekly radio program in 2007 on CRN.
But he was also involved in a serious accident in 2003. Under the influence of alcohol, he struck another driver who died, following his injuries. Convicted of drinking and driving, Robert Conrad is given a suspended six-month prison sentence. Himself seriously injured in the accident, his spinal cord and nerves were damaged, he remained paralyzed on the right side.